De Lachende Javaan Haarlem

I've eaten here about 10 times over the last three years. I see that one reviewer had a not-so-great experience with the food, but I can assure you this is an outlier. The food is generally among the best rijsttafel Indonesian I've had. The decor is engaging and the atmosphere lively. it can be good for groups and despite being a little on the classy side, it's great for (well trained kids. So here are some things I think folks might want to consider before going. Like most rijsttafel places, it's a bit on the pricy side. It gets sold out surprisingly often. I will grudgingly admit that the service, although friendly, is almost always slow. But if you anticipate these things before hand and just roll with it, you'll have a great meal. Pro-tip: order two drinks at once so you don't have to wait to reorder ; On a romantic note, when my wife and her sister were small children, my in-laws would stash them at my father-in-law's house in Zandvoort and slip away to eat here. This was the 1970s and1980s. The place has been around a long time!

Groeten uit Chicago!! PI've been to the Netherlands many times since I wrote my initial review and on each trip I will pay at least one visit to De Lachende Javaan. The quality in both the food and the service is outstanding! We tend to order dishes that we like vs. doing the rijstaffel only because we've done the rijstaffel before and it's a great introduction to Indonesian food, but once we learned what dishes we liked ... that's what we'd order. The room is very charming and sometimes patrons can be a bit boisterous but that's because they're having a great meal in a great environment.

Shared a lovely evening with my nephew, a Haarlem local. A welcoming and authentic, comfortable ambiance. We shared a vegan dinner for two. The dishes were uniformly interesting. Spice level was comfortable! . After diner, we had a peek at the restaurant 's interesting collection of KLM advertising from the colonial era. Delicious and fun

Absolutely adorable restaurant that is located in one of the alleyways. Although I experienced great service, I found this restaurant to have my least favorite rijsttafel during my visit. Definitely not an authentic experience for me. When the food arrived, the dishes were explained in the lowest voice possible. My guess, she was not comfortable speaking English. I ordered the kuning rijsttafel, 28.50 pp, and was disappointed by the lack of flavor and spice. A lot of the meat was tough and fatty as well. We added the tjendol, which was just ok. Great atmosphere, cute menu, good service. Too bad the food wasn't great. Yelp challenge #28

Best Indonesian Rijsttafel in Haarlem!!! Went here with the whole Bende family 25+ of us. We took up one of their entire dining rooms on a Thursday night. Service and food were excellent. Great awesome Rijsttafel. This restaurant is now in our must eat here list when we visit Haarlem from San Diego, CA. Love coming here for the food and being able to reunite the family every couple of years. We'll be back many times over.